1. Field of the Invention
The disclosures discussed herein generally relate to an image forming system, an image forming apparatus, an authentication server, a client personal computer (PC), a control method of the image forming apparatus, and a non-transitory recording medium storing a program implementing the control method.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is a communication system utilizing an Internet protocol security (IPsec) known in the art. The IPsec is a protocol utilized for providing a tamper prevention function or a concealing function for each of IP packets of a communication session by utilizing a cryptographic technology. The IPsec may enable the communications in the transport layer or the application layer that does not support a cryptographic technology without allowing the communication contents to be tampered with or to be eavesdropped while the communications are performed.
The IPsec is composed of an authentication mechanism and a guarantee of the integrity of data provided by an authentication header, a security protocol such as data encryption implemented by encapsulated security payload (ESP), and a key exchange achieved by an Internet key exchange protocol (IKE).
The communications with IPsec may require setting the same security policy between communication partners in advance. However, the settings of such a security policy may require specialized technical knowledge. Further, since numerous items need to be set for the security policy, numerous errors may be induced.
There is disclosed a technology for setting such a same security policy between communication partners in advance. In this technology, a cryptographic communication channel encrypted by a secure socket layer (SSL) or the like that differs from the IPsec may be utilized between a personal computer and an image forming apparatus such as a printer to transmit IPsec settings from the PC to the image forming apparatus so as to automatically set the transmitted IPsec settings in the image forming apparatus.
In the above technology to transmit the IPsec settings via the cryptographic communication channel encrypted by the SSL, the setting values are encrypted and therefore will not be leaked by interception or eavesdropping. However, it may relatively be easy to establish the SSL between any types of communication partners such that a third party may be able to acquire the setting values quite easily.
Further, in the above technology, parameters of the IPsec settings are sent from the client PC to the image forming apparatus, which indicates that IPsec settings for the client PC are required.
However, specialized technical knowledge may be required for setting the IPsec, and further, the IPsec settings may be required for each of the client PCs.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2009-177560, for example, discloses a technology that enables a novice user having no advance knowledge of the IPsec to set the IPsec.
In the technology disclosed in Patent Document 1, the SSL communications are established between the client PC and the image forming apparatus, and the setting parameters necessary for the IPsec communication are sent from the client PC to the image forming apparatus. Then the IPsec parameter setting part disposed in the image forming apparatus then sets the received setting parameters in the IPsec function part of the image forming apparatus.
However, the technology disclosed in Patent Document 1 may still allow the third party to acquire the setting values, and may still require the IPsec settings for the client PC.